Page 89 - The Six Sigma Project Planner

Project Control Subplans

Project control subplans can be developed for five major areas: risk, quality, cost,
schedule, and scope. Blank sheets are provided in the Appendix to include information
on each of these subplans. Unlike the plans that deal with creating the project’s
deliverables, these subplans focus on the mechanics of managing the project. Although
their impact on the deliverables is indirect, the impact of these subplans on the success
of the project should not be underestimated. Projects routinely fail to produce the
expected deliverables due to unanticipated risk or uncontrolled scope creep or scope
drift. Equally common are projects that produce deliverables that don’t meet the
expectations or needs of the project’s stakeholders. Finally, projects that produce the
desired deliverable but take too long or cost too much must also be judged as less than
completely successful in meeting their goals and objectives.

Risk Control Plan *
Because projects deal with the future, all projects involve risk. The basic risk considered
by the risk control plan is that of the project not meeting its overall goals and objectives.
Separate control subplans deal with risks involving quality, cost, and schedule.

Resilience
It is worth noting that there are two ways of dealing with risk: anticipation and
resilience. Our focus will be on anticipating risk and preparing plans to avoid or
mitigate risk, but you should be aware of the resilience option.
Resilience is the ability to achieve your goals despite the impact of unanticipated risk.
Resilience is related to robustness. Robustness is the capacity of the project plan to
succeed in the face of normal variability, while resilience is the ability to produce at
least a partially successful result even when the future is radically different than
expected.
One way of thinking about resilience is that it is the ability to “turn on a dime,” to
pull together the pieces of potential failure and move in an entirely different
direction, or, similarly, to recognize a better opportunity and quickly redirect the
project’s resources to take advantage of it. Resilience is seeing that your bacteria
culture experiment was ruined by an unknown mold and then recognizing the
potential of penicillin.

*
Part of the official project plan.

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